Well, blackberry phones are unrootable by design. (this will probably mean no OEM unlock too)
Enough for me not to even consider this an option.

OK, this bit is hilarious "unrootable by design"

Could have been true with their own OS but BB's use android in the new devices, right? And where you have droid you have countless people ponding at it, so now and then someone is bound to find a crack leading in. Fact of life.

I don't know much about the Z smartphones, except that they are big and now have a nice keyboard slider (thanks for reviving the concept), but if true Sailfish experience could be possible on them and the landscape keyboard could be used, then that would be a nice filler for me until your own qwerty phone is out (but it may take time, and is dependent on successful crowdfunding). My Jolla C is dying, and it is dying now.

I don't need the proprietary word prediction if I have a keyboard slider, but were are we now with Aliendalvik alternatives, Anbox and such? Is it usable on community ports? There are unfortunately a few applications that I cannot avoid using and that have no native Sailfish version.

I had an idea for that but due to lack of time have not gone anywhere with it yet...

I recently got into my hands a bagful of various models of Asus ee-PC mini-laptops. The devices by themselves are fairly limited by todays standards since the HW is about a decade old and was not near the top-of-the-range even then

So, I had in my mind to gut the insides out of some of the devices and replace with Raspberries. What I'd save is the display and keyboard and since the PI's are so small there would be plenty of space available to stuff full of Li-ion goodiness...

I already have made some tests on how long I can run a Raspberry from a mobile power bank and the results are promising. When I'll have time to do it (which looking at my schedule could be sometime in the 2030's...) I'll check what the keyboard and display interfaces in the ee-PC's are like and what's required to adapt those to the PI.

Heh, there actually should be space enough for stuffing at least 2 Raspberries in one subnotebook frame, so I could have real multicpu laptop, not just multicore!

Would love to see mass production of Asus ee-PC mini laptops with Raspberry Pi 2 inside. Why not Raspberry Pi 3? Simple, I don't want to have to replace Raspberry Pi once wireless isn't working for some reason. Would rather use USB add-ons for wireless things, much more customisable. Raspeberry Pi 2 ver 1.2 sounds good, [Edit]not same, but similar[/edit] CPU as Raspberry Pi 3; no need to limit wireless to 802.11n. Also, decreases power usage when idle (220mA for Pi2 1.2, 300mA for Pi3).

Paspberry Pi Zero PCB ver 1.3 also sounds promising for ultra-low power consumption of 100mA when idle, but: it would need a USB hub, a TRRS jack, and Ethernet port.

I have to say, I am annoyed at concept of memory shared between CPU and GPU; cannot each of them have their own RAM? But that's Raspberry's choice.

Make the prototypes first, though ;-) Li-ion can be tricky, and cases are trouble, too.

P.S. Would like to see guides on rejuvenating old laptops with new hardware. Currently, there are one or two laptops around which, besides old hardware (still usable), have problems with LCD displays (which will become unusable in a few years, I guess; typical for this lifebook model, in my experience).

Originally Posted by nh1402

TCL are bringing back Palm this year, maybe we'll see a more open keyboard phone with that brand.

A competitor ? Jolla abandonned the TOH when they stopped making hardware.
And Motorola would have been stupid to embrace such a crippled solution (I2C, created for small and slow communications), when they have chosen a high performance bus allowing a greater range of adds-on (like video capture and projection, or sound).

Then why did Jolla choose I2C, such a crippled solution? It's ironic that Jolla got a variety of TOHs (infrared imaging and eInk display, besides keyboard and battery), while I haven't heard about such a variety of addons available for Moto Z.

Originally Posted by Zeta

But back on the topic, it would be great to really have some nice choices regarding phones with hardware keyboard. I am looking especially for compacts sliding landscape QWERTY (N950 like).

Agree, sliders are neat. Especially when most new phones now are just slatebar.

OMG, how short do these things last? My N900 is 8 years old and my Jolla 1 is four. None of them are "dying".

My N900s and Jolla are still fine, except for the yellowish side of the screen on the Jolla, but the Jolla C has suffered more falls and survived way longer than any modern phone would have, probably thanks to the removable battery and plastic case that help absorbing shocks.

In fact the Jolla C is still ok, but would need a fresh install due to lots of unfinished/uncleaned tweaks I did, and someone scrached the screen badly by putting it with sharp metallic objects in a tiny case during a car trip, which now makes me want a new phone. It just needs a new screen, or even just a new screen protector, and time to clean up the software side. I just want Chen's qwerty slider phone and find excuses.

"ultra low" ? Isn't that quite high ? it would deplete a 2000mAh in less than a day while idle ? My Jolla with network active can stay for at least 3 days on a single charge with minimal use.

Originally Posted by Wikiwide

I have to say, I am annoyed at concept of memory shared between CPU and GPU; cannot each of them have their own RAM? But that's Raspberry's choice.

That's the solution used by all (most?) integrated GPU even on Intel processors and some external ones (like my Nvidia GPU on my desktop). There are cost and complexity issues that lead to these choices.
It also gives flexibility, if you don't need the GPU memory (running headless for example), you can take it back for the CPU...

Originally Posted by Wikiwide

Then why did Jolla choose I2C, such a crippled solution?

No idea...only interface available maybe ?
Or they were targeting some small sensors and not "real" extensibility of the phone. At some point i remember Marc Dillon talking of things like blood glucose sensor for diabetes, which would work correctly with I2C.

Originally Posted by Wikiwide

It's ironic that Jolla got a variety of TOHs (infrared imaging and eInk display, besides keyboard and battery), while I haven't heard about such a variety of addons available for Moto Z.

Really ?
A bunch of them exists : https://www.verizonwireless.com/accessories/moto-mods/
And except for keyboard and battery, none would have been possible with I2C.
All the TOH where hacked by community. The infrared imaging would not be as useful (8x8 pixels), compared to the normal ones you get from FLIR (works easily on all phones with USB OTG, so a huge market compared to the TOH) are at least 80x60 pixels with fast refresh, that for example gives enough resolution to allow troubleshooting PCBs with detail on with SMD component is dissipating more than it should.
But we already had that talk a lot of times in TMO... and were are again out of topic